


Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

by wearwind



Series: The Extraordinary Series [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition - Jaws of Hakkon DLC, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Gen, History, History has its eyes on you, Kinda Hamilton songfic?, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 07:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21095786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearwind/pseuds/wearwind
Summary: Three elven men - the Dread Wolf, the First Inquisitor, and the Herald of Andraste - face history. And neither of them can control their legacy.





	Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AryaTred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AryaTred/gifts).

> This work is a very melancholic collision of several of my obsessions: Dragon Age, Hamilton, and meditations on history. Have a couple of elven dudes living essentially the same storyline over and over again, strugging to face the evolution of their memory.
> 
> As always, many thanks to AryaTred for lending me her Inquisitor as a plaything for my dramas <3

_Let me tell you what I wish I’d known_

_When I was young and dreamt of glory,_

_You have no control_

_Who lives, who dies, who tells your story…_

(Hamilton: the American Musical)

** _Who lives_ **

“Master,” said an elf quietly, before bowing and walking out of the room, her shoulders stiff and tense. Solas rested his head on his fingers. His elbows dug into piles of documents scattered on the table.

_Fen’Harel._

His very name stood for terror and evil in the elven pantheon. He should be happy that this many elves decided to cast the prejudice aside and join him anyway; the quickling shadows crowding to cross the sight of the real Elvhen. Their fear was expected, alongside with their enthusiasm. But there was something else that came with both: reverence.

Either fearful or full of wonder, but it was there. Gone were the days of Skyhold, the humble _hahren _commanding authority by the way of his knowledge. Gone was Sera sowing mischief around the rotunda, Varric’s casual curiosity, Vivienne consistently looking down on him and inadvertently giving credibility to his disguise. Gone was the pretend of normalcy. He was a god again.

Gone was Fenriel, an irony of fate embodied, a quirk of causality that came to take stock of all his failings. An elven child, mortal and savage, branded with _his _mark of power – _branded with HIS mark of power, oh stars, Andruil would laugh so, so hard, the great remover of vallaslin, breaker of chains! BRANDED with HIS MARK – _a Dalish First, lured away from the safety of his camp by the cunning Dread Wolf. The ironies only grew with time, and Solas came to appreciate them in their full bitterness: that was the story of his legacy now, and there was no escaping from it.

Oh, how he laughed when the Evanuris were defeated! Oh, how they would laugh, knowing that for all he despised about them calling themselves gods, _he _was the one the shape this world, to bring death onto the People, to single-handedly crash the course of history, and to be reviled and revered fearfully, every Dalish curse a variation on his name.

“All you wanted was for them to be free,” said Cole quietly, phasing into existence next to the table. Solas sighed.

“And yet all I did only bound them. No-one will ask the world-breaker for his intentions.”

“Fenriel might.”

His lips twitched in a sad half-smile. “He might, yes.” The child always asked his questions, his curiosity as boundless as Solas’ own; and he was thoughtful and considerate, both in his thirst for answers and in his quest to mend the sky. It hurt looking at him. It hurt becoming his friend. Somehow that kind-eyed face became an embodiment of his every mistake, living and breathing and _deserving so much better _and yet still doomed to live down the consequences of _his _own errors.

Mortal, where the Elvhen were eternal. Frail, where the Elvhen were powerful. Savage, living amongst the trees and ruins of former glory, repeating snippets of disfigured mother tongue and finding meaning in things not worth remembering; his heritage a distorted history, persecution and lies, and his gods a group of bloodthirsty pretenders. And his face! His face, the rune of Mythal claiming his sight and his words and his mind! They took the markings of the _slaves, _a thousand years after his rebellion, he had set them free and they _bound themselves – _

“His face shines with pride,” said Cole softly. ”He had been waiting for that moment ever since the older boys got theirs. They could get married. Hunt. Run off on their own. _Vallaslin _has always meant freedom.”

Solas pressed his fingers tightly against his temples. “His _always _is uninformed, Cole.”

“But he was happy. They were happy.”

“A mind will occupy any space given to it. They would find happiness in a cage if the cage was all they knew. Should I then not open it?”

“But he was happy,” repeated Cole helplessly. Solas shook his head.

“Even if you call your shackles jewellery, they will not stop constraining you.”

“Does godhood?”

He closed his eyes, staring into the ageless nothingness behind his eyelids. That was the physical reality of _uthenera. _Just darkness, nothing else. His spirit may roam, but his body would always stay still, contained in this darkness of closed eyelids, anchored in the physical reality severed so firmly from the spirit realm. His beautiful handiwork, his crowning crime. The Veil.

“Is death a gift, Cole?”

The spirit looked at the knives at his waist. “It may be. Suffering, sweltering, sweet release. The pain is gone now, only serenity.”

Solas’ lips curved in a sad, bitter smile. “Would I have been happier not knowing my legacy?”

“I can make you forget.” Hope brightened Cole’s eyes, but they immediately dimmed again. “But you don’t want me to.”

“Your compassion is wasted on me, my dear Cole. But if I could wish for one thing…” Solas closed his eyes. _Now that I’ve seen my legacy, I cannot ignore it. _

“…I would wish to never have woken up to this world.”

** **

** _Who dies_ **

Fenriel is dying.

The Anchor is unstable, and has been for a while. But now the electric-green impulses shock his hand with increased frequency, every sudden shot rendering him blind and mindless; it takes over his entire body before it dissipates into _just _paralysing pain. He’s jerky, fragile, unsure of his every moment – any one of them could end in an explosion of agony.

There is no obvious trigger of the Anchor discharges, they wake him up in the night and stun him in the middle of the battle. He’s clutching the Anchor to his chest in a vain attempt to hide it, heal it; an animalistic response, worthy of the kind of Inquisitor he would have been in the eyes of many, the elven savage with a tattooed face. It doesn’t matter. The Inquisition will be disbanded soon; it has outlived its purpose and now it’s infected from within. Just like himself.

_Herald of Andraste. _An elf bearing her insignia, second Shartan. It used to make him proud: the humans revered him. In hindsight, he should have paid more attention as to how Shartan’s story ended.

History is not kind to elves that have outlived their purpose.

Another shock goes through his body, and Fenriel yelps in pain. His knees give way and he hangs from Dorian’s arms like a rag doll, limp and cold and shivering. The agony radiates from his palm to the middle of his chest, its toxic-green tendrils reaching out for his heart. Dorian’s eyes are wide over his, and Fenriel just stares in them, letting those eyes be the only thing on his mind; love is his anaesthetic.

Until the blinding agony passes and drifts away, and he is back to the aftershock pain. Then he notices Dorian panicking over the white noise in his ears; hands shaky, Fenriel unwraps himself from his lover’s arms and keeps walking, head high and shoulders straight.

“I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know. All those books in that bloody Magisterium library and I still don’t know! Stupid fucking altus, should have been a healer instead of digging up the dead. _That_ would have made sense of my life. At least you know you can’t die on me, _amatus. _Because the only thing that’s going to change is that you will be walking around in a _rotten _body, because so help me Maker, I _will _bring your soul back from behind the Veil-”

“Dorian,” he interrupts the rambling in a shaky voice. Dorian goes quiet.

Fenriel presses his Anchor hand to his chest and breathes out, trying to find the right words. The Veil is pressing hard on him, harder still every moment the Anchor flares up. He knows that feeling. After Haven, in the dark, in the snow…

He’s dying.

There are no right words.

Dorian loops his arm around Fenriel’s waist, stabilising him. ”We’ll find a way,” he says, and his accent is so elaborate and his enunciation so perfect that it must be true, and for a moment, Fenriel believes him. Dorian has always spoken nothing but his own truth. “We’ll isolate the Anchor, or remove it. Give me a team of Minrathous mages and a proper Northern lab, and we’ll get you back to perfect health, and I shall be your sexy nurse. What do you think, _amatus_? For my part, I just can’t wait.”

At _that _mental image, Fenriel laughs through his constricted throat. “Give yourself the Antivan accent and I’m sold.”

Dorian crinkles his nose. “I think that can be written off as definitely unsexy.” He’s teasing, inviting Fenriel to argue, but his eyes are worried.

“It wasn’t the accent that was unsexy, _vhenan. _It was the moustache. Lack of it, specifically. Speaking of which, I’m uncertain whether it’s hygienic for nurses to have moustaches. We might need to investigate…”

“Ah yes. Because were there ever a defining feature of this relationship, it is definitely thorough research preceding sexy fantasies.”

Fenriel laughs earnestly. “You know, _vhena-_aaaargh!”

Before his mind goes blank again, he curses the Anchor for spoiling his most sacred word.

He’s dying.

He’s dying, and he’s leaving Dorian behind.

** **

** _Who tells your story_ **

** **

_When the betrayed elven child meets a lonely god, both will gain something and lose much more._

Ameridan furrowed his brow over the cryptic note. Telana had scribbled it in her sleep, as she would whenever she’d come across prophecies in the Fade; sometimes spirits were friendly enough to explain it, some other times they were not. This had been the other time.

Frustratingly so. The _lonely god _could be Hakkon.

“Have I ever been betrayed?”

“In your line of work? Probably,” Haron said dryly. “The real question is, are you seriously contemplating calling yourself an _elven child?_”

“I _was_ born to an elf,” said Ameridan, slightly insulted. ”And those things are not exactly known for their clarity.” It _wasn’t_ a stretch to consider himself, he thought firmly; those prophecies were always at least indirectly tied to the task at hand. They’d encountered a couple of them before, seemingly left by some cryptic unknown entities that saw through the strands of time weaving around them. Though it seemed that this kind of skill left one deprived of the ability for clear communication…

Orinna rolled her eyes. “It will get clear, all right. Once it happens. We’ll get to that point and suddenly it’ll be obvious. But not one blighted moment before, because why would it ever be useful?”

Telana’s hand moved groggily from where it’d been tucked under her head, the hand’s owner still firmly asleep, and scribbled a short note. _I can still hear you, stonehead._

“Doesn’t get any less creepy with time.” Orinna looked around, shuddered, and went back to polishing her armour. Ameridan grinned at this, but then his gaze was drawn back to the note.

“What are your feelings about this, friends? I… can’t shake a bad premonition.”

Haron shrugged disinterestedly. “Like she said. We won’t decipher this before it happens. I would just focus on Hakkon for the time being.”

“But it’s about an elf,” insisted Ameridan, feeling an odd sense of anxiety. His fingers found the Sunburst symbol and started fiddling with it. “An elf meeting a god. The Elvhen pantheon is lost to us, and no-one would describe the Maker as _a_ lonely god… _The _god, perhaps, but not an _a_. And with those two options out of the picture, what is left? Avvar gods? It seems like too much of a coincidence now that we’re chasing one.”

“And so what if it _is _about you?” said Orinna. ”You’ll gain something and lose something. Not very specific, but doesn’t sound too tragic to me either. And it’s probably got an in-built doom in it as well so we can’t really dodge it either, can we?”

A cold shiver ran down Ameridan’s spine. “Not lose _something._ Lose _much more. _That’s a threat if I ever heard one.”

“Look, I know you mages put a lot of trust in all this Fade business. ‘S probably more emotional for you too. Especially for a Dreamer.” Orinna’s gaze was drawn back to sleeping Telana. ”But from what I understand about that place… and I daresay that’s a lot… ultimately that’s just a reflection of you. Your happy side _and _your worried side. And if you let it feed into your worries…”

“It’ll just show you more and more darkness in your future,” said Haron. “Even if it’s real, you may not need to see it coming. Otherwise the darkness is all you expect.”

Ameridan nodded stiffly. There had been a lot of darkness in their thoughts. The disbanding of the Inquisition, the creation of the still-so-wobbly Chantry, the messy diplomacy of Orlais and the Dales… the threat of Hakkon. And with the Avvar gods on his mind, maybe the Fade did bring him along a piece of the future reflecting his present anxieties.

He took a deep breath and then forced a smile. Haron nodded, satisfied; the ex-lyrium addict would know a thing or two about pushing the bad thoughts into the oblivion where they belonged. Orinna seemed less convinced.

“Hey, boss. You won’t start referring to yourself as a _lonely elven child _now, will you? Because that’s where I put my axe down.”

“I think the expression is the _foot, _Orinna.”

“I know what I said.”

Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe the title of the Inquisitor – well, ex-Inquisitor – prevented one to be patronised by Fade prophecies. Maybe he worried too much about the future, about his legacy, about the world behind the Veil. Maybe – because if the Fade was a reflection of the world, then why wouldn’t the spirits there lie as well? – it wasn’t even true.

He was Ameridan of the Dales, marked by the Maker and Sylaise. He walked with their twin blessings, and he would lose to no other god.

***

Fenriel stares ahead, and the voices of the Well swirl in his head to the point of hysteria. The cacophony reaches its crescendo as Fen’Harel turns the Qunari into stone with a mere glance. The Anchor in his hand pulsates spasmodically.

_No, _he mouths, but no sound comes out.

Solas looks at him, his old, kind eyes filled with pity. “Why not?”

“You can’t be,” Fenriel chokes out through his agony. The history of the People was a lie; the markings on his forehead were a lie. His gods were a lie. But the fear of the Dread Wolf was real; and the statues outside the edge of the camp, and the cautionary tales, and the swearing, and the blessings… _May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent. _It was real. It was real. It was real-

“Is there any reason for me not to be Fen’Harel, my friend? When you cast aside the reality you want, you are faced with the one that’s left. That may be the closest version of truth you can reach.”

It _was _real.

It _is_ not.

“You’re dying,” says Solas softly. He makes no move, making every conscious effort not to be threatening, even though he radiates power. The kind of power that feels familiar on Fenriel’s tongue, the same electric tinge of the Anchor. “Can I help you?”

He hears Dorian’s angry voice as if from very far away. “_Can y_\- why would you even tarry _this _long, you old fart?! Help him _now!_”

Fenriel would laugh at Dorian’s open irreverence when faced with the _ageless elven god of betrayal, _but the Anchor discharges and he is consumed by green-coloured pain.

Fen’Harel approaches him.

Fenriel is not a very good First.

He lets the god touch him. And then the pain is suddenly blocked, and his knees go limp in relief; Dorian catches him from behind, and after a long moment he finds his balance on wobbly, shaky limbs, still feeling the bound energy trapped within his arm, but there is some sort of barrier between the energy and his body; the sense of power is still there, but it doesn’t spill into a pool of pain.

He breathes tightly, experimentally. The barrier holds.

“It’s not a permanent solution, but it will buy us time,” says Solas. “I suspect you have questions.”

Fenriel’s head spins. Then he starts laughing.

“Questions, he says. He comes back to the People after five thousand years and all he expects is _questions!_”

Solas’ face is still, but his eyes are sad. “You will find that answers are still the most valuable thing I can offer you.”

“Very well. Did you create the Veil?”

“I was not alone in doing so. But yes.”

“Did you fight and imprison the Evanuris?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago did you wake up?”

“Ten years ago. Barely a blink in time.”

“Why didn’t you help us?”

A pause.

“I tried.”

Fenriel balls his fists. “No. No, you didn’t, my friend. You went up to the Dalish and tried to teach them your stories as a bare-faced _hahren. _You never told us who you were, never offered the proof for your truth. Your power. And then, once the People would not believe you, you openly disowned us. You wouldn’t even call us _your people!_”

“I had no power, Fenriel. Ask the Champion of Kirkwall about the hermit in the woods.”

“What?” Fenriel’s face crinkles in confusion, then darkens. “It doesn’t matter. You were a god, and you disowned us. Even the knowledge you held could save Dalish lives. The lives of _my clan._”

“Would they have died had _you_ been there?”

A sharp intake of breath. Dorian bristles behind him. “How _dare_ you-”

“No,” says Fenriel, voice flat. “But I was sent away from my clan trying to mend the sky _you_ had torn.”

Solas’ face cracks for just a milisecond, the anguish evident in his eyes. ”I am not denying my responsibility for the elven fate. But just as you left your clan to save the world… so must I.”

“Why?”

“Because I lived to see the consequences of my mistakes, and they are deadly.”

“What’s your plan here, Solas?” demands Fenriel, vaguely aware that the energy pressing against the barrier in his arm is growing stronger by the second. Time is running out. ”Why would you help us with the Qunari and still infiltrate the Inquisition? What’s your next big goal?”

“You’ve seen the Library. You’ve witnessed the destruction I wrought, and the misery that followed. The Veil is a wound on the face of the world. It needs to be healed.”

A silence, in which his own heartbeat pulsates so, so loudly against the swirling green energy of the Anchor.

“No.”

Solas looks at him, face carefully schooled into nothing. Fenriel recalls Cole in his mind; this will need all his strength and all his compassion.

“I can’t let you.”

Solas nods, as if he hadn’t expected anything else.

“Did you really lead the rebellion? Fighting slavery, taking away the _vallaslin?_”

“I didn’t get the mantle of the _Dread Wolf _from my followers, my friend.”

“Then you have to understand,” says Fenriel almost pleadingly, locking eyes with the Enemy of the People, the Great Betrayer, Dread Wolf Fen’Harel. “The Library is dead, and so are the people of your past. But there are fights to be had about _our _People, about _our _elves, and with you – with an Evanura, we stand a chance against the empires of this world. You don’t have to right the cataclysm with another cataclysm. Look what we have accomplished in just three years!”

Solas’ eyes course to his right arm. “All we have done was to fix another great mistake of mine. I have no right to ask any more of you.”

“Oh _please,_” says Dorian from behind Fenriel. ”Don’t be so dramatic, my dear eggheaded divinity. We did so much more than just seal your handiwork hole in the sky and you know it.”

“Tell me, Master Pavus, what is the root cause of all issues we have encountered?” Solas doesn’t even look at him. “A common denomination, if you will. There is one.”

“The Veil,” says Fenriel. ”You _think_ it’s the Veil.” The fullness of energy in his arm is becoming an ache. It feels different from the other onsets of outbursts, much grander; he feels his entire body tensing in terrible anticipation. “The mages, the templars, the lyrium, the Blight. You think this is all because of the separation of the worlds.”

“Is it not?”

“_No_,” says Fenriel empathetically. “The Veil is an element of each, but they are not _caused _by it. Correlation does not equal--” His hands start to tremble. “Causation.”

A fleeting smile flashes on Solas’ face. ”Correct. Irrelevant, but correct.”

The ache in his arm spreads to the point of pain. “How long do I have?” asks Fenriel in a throttled voice. He can feel Dorian’s arms tensing on his. Solas’ eyes fill with pity again, pity and regret.

“Not long. The Anchor is unstable.”

_Expectable. _Fenriel closes his eyes. ”How long exactly?”

“The rest of your life, if you let me help you.” Solas doesn’t move forward, and it’s not the caution from before; this is hesitation. Fenriel will have to make this choice. And it’s terrible for some reason – terrible enough for Solas not to want it. Terrible enough for the _Dread Wolf _not to want it.

He had befriended the _Dread Wolf._ Mythal have mercy on him.

Fenriel takes a step forward. The Anchor flashes and the barrier breaks, flooding his mind; he is screaming, dying, thrashing, he is _lost _and death is the only known direction…

He is dying.

He is dying.

He is –

_losing._

The energy drains from him, and he can see again; he opens his eyes and the darkness explodes into a swirl of green and while light, and Solas is holding him like a mother would a child, his arms covering Fenriel’s Anchor hand, and the pain is dissipating… and so is the hand –

Sweltering heat is pulled away from his soul, ripped like a piece of fabric glued together, and he exhales a breath of relief. The Anchor is fading away, the energy moving to Solas; the rightful owner of the Anchor with his power at last.

Fenriel feels empty. He tries to open and close his hand; the green scar is gone from it, the Mark of the Herald stripped away. No longer the Chosen of Andraste; no longer the Inquisitor. Just a Dalish First in front of his _hahren._

The hand is not there.

The arm is not there.

Solas is not there.

Fenriel looks at what is left from his arm in dumb surprise. Then he collapses.

***

When the Inquisition disbands, he thinks of the Slow Arrow. _Foolish are the ones that ask the Dread Wolf for help._

_He will turn it against you and leave you helpless, and he will laugh at you because your request is fulfilled!_

He is alive.

A part of him wishes he had died instead. A glorious kind of death. Like Stroud, facing the Nightmare in the Fade. Like the Grey Wardens with the Archdemon. Not the slow fading from importance and glory, an elven cripple who gained his mark by a quirk of luck and lost it by someone else’s choice.

Dorian leaves to Tevinter. Varric leaves to Kirkwall. Bull marches out with the Chargers one day, in pursuit of coin and adventure. Fenriel wanders around Skyhold, feelings as if the ghost of his right hand is grasping at the ghosts of the past.

With his left hand, he writes to Hawke about the hermit in the woods. The answer comes late and is every part as ridiculous as he should have expected. She is guided by destiny after all; maybe humans just have it better organised than the People. Their god is smart enough not to come too close.

He is not the Inquisitor. He is not the Herald. He is not even the Dalish First anymore: he is a harellan without a clan, kin to no-one but the Dread Wolf himself.

In his dreams, he walks the ruins of the Library and reads the fulfilled prophecies. The sky burst open; the earth split and bled red. Wisdom was dead and the only hope was in Compassion. And when the lonely god met the elven child…

In his dreams, he raises his right hand and catches a lightning into his bare palm. ”I mended the sky,” he says to the spirits of the Library, the scribes of the centuries. “I led my people through the blood and snow and darkness to a castle in the sky. I saved them. I fought dragons in the sky, and giants in the deep. And I fought the pretender that would be god, and sent him into the Fade where he belongs. I am Inquisitor Fenriel Lavellan, and I bear the marks of Mythal! This is how you should remember me!”

_As you wish, _whisper the spirits, and a new tablet appears in front of him. It has a distinct shape of a gravestone.

_Fenriel._

_Lost more than he gained._

He wakes up screaming.


End file.
